I don’t know if I would be considered to be a maverick here, but personally I don’t give a tinker’s dam about XP as in “brownie points.” Mine go up, mine go down, and I’d have to look to find out how many I have. But I do care about: the value of contributions to the forum community (although, I freely admit, I have myself been castigated for the “lack of” same), as perceived by the unknown person in the unknown time to whom I am actually speaking.

In every online community there will always be people who are outspoken, not merely about what they do, but about what they think you should do. They are entitled to their opinions, and those opinions should be listened to, but ultimately you are not writing whatever you write to any of them,. Nor are you preaching to the choir, nor are you particularly writing &lbrack;just...&rbrack; to the present day. Threads are used as a resource many years into the future. They will be found via Super Search (or Google) by a person who genuinely needs to know. You don’t know who or where or when; nevertheless, speak to that person. Do it as best you can, “according to the dictates of your own conscience,” and leave it at that.

Every online forum, anywhere and everywhere, has these identical personal dynamics.

My opinion of PerlMonks is, and pretty much always has been, as you have already said: it is one of the singular congregations of truly smart and seasoned people (present company not particularly included), and the information quality and the helpfulness is high. There is a reason to spend daily time here. (P. S.: here’s a rose to all of you ... @>--+---- ) Write this way, and “consider” this way too. One other personal mantra that I have is: “always upvote generously when you deem it to be appropriate, but never downvote even though you can.” (“Downvoting” has always been another interesting subject of debate in other circles. For example, http://www.geocaching.com by design allows you to upvote but not to downvote a cache. They make a compelling psychology case for that decision, that apparently works for them. Be it so, I merely follow my own self-guidance on this and all other matters.)

JM2CW.™ Nothing more, and nothing less. (And BTW if anyone out there thinks that I am “baiting” you or particularly talking about you, skip it ... I’m not.)

Congratulations on becoming a Friar, and for what it indicates about your postings, thanks.

Thanks sundialsvc4. I agree on all points. I couldn't care less about the XP as well, but because XP comes with responsibility, I wanted to know what my responsibilities were. Even if I decide(d) not to use the new powers, I wanted to know what they were and how to use them wisely.

Regarding up/down voting, I'm on the same page. I'm sure I've only downvoted two or three times since I've been here. I'm a firm believer in rewarding positive behaviour/actions/etc with my votes. I'd sooner have extra votes at the end of the day after only upvoting than having no votes left to upvote with on a good post if I used some of them for downvoting.

ps. I thoroughly enjoy your posts and hold you in a high regard, but I appreciate and understand your modesty :)

Update: Fixed a mistake in my wording that reversed what I meant, thanks to jdporter's keen eye. Thanks!